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Managed Wi-Fi is Revolutionizing Digital Learning for Agro-Industrial College

With the advent of technology, the trend of going digital can be seen everywhere from businesses to government to various sectors and professions in the country. It’s made countless lives easier and countless processes more convenient. Additionally, with digital, mobile and network technology everyone is now more connected than ever, with finding, interacting with and getting to know someone as simple as clicking “Add Friend” on Facebook.

At the heart of most of today’s technology is the world wide web. With the internet, you can do everything from buy a new jacket, order food, pay your bills, and listen to music to more complicated things like collaborate on a project with your entire team, shout out to your favorite celebrity, know your exact location on the planet and get a driver to pick you up, and have an android discover when you’ve run out of supplies so it can add items to a grocery list. Truly, it seems like the possibilities are endless.

It’s for this reason that many institutions consider Internet connection a necessity. Among these institutions are the schools all over the country that are steadily building their presence on the web as well as utilizing its functions and services to the most that they can.

Agro-Industrial College is one of these schools. As of last year, they installed managed Wi-Fi on their campus, and have been reaping the rewards ever since. We talked to Sir Ryan Komaling, the college’s Systems Maintenance Officer and Encoder, who walked us through their experience with managed Wi-Fi and how it has improved their day-to-day lives.

First he explained the advantage managed Wi-Fi has over regular Wi-Fi connection, saying, “[When you have] personal accounts at home, once everyone is connected the bandwidth is smaller and the connection becomes slower.”

On the other hand, managed Wi-Fi allows many people—namely, the whole student population—to access the internet conveniently. It doesn’t slow down with regular use, and it has the added feature of allowing the encoders in charge, Sir Ryan and his team, to block certain unsafe websites that will hinder the learning of their students. They can even study the browsing habits of their users, and of course provide technical support as soon as it’s needed.

As of now it is being observed by the admin for evaluation, but Sir Ryan has no complaints. According to him, in their first few trials they decided to make the Wi-Fi available to their students from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. only, while the school was open. Later on, they decided to keep the connection running for an unlimited amount of time as long as the servers were open, after seeing how much it was needed by their students and staff.

He’s also seen how it’s helped the students: allowing them to make projects, do assignments, and even answer tests more conveniently. It gave them access to data, lectures and other information that they didn’t have before, and made learning “much more comfortable and effective now.”

While they haven’t been using the managed Wi-Fi for long, there are many plans they want to implement in the future: they intend to set up respective networks for the students, admin and guests; want to promote viewing online lectures and learning from tutorial videos; and improve on the interaction between students and teachers for more holistic and effective learning.

When asked why they decided to go digital, Sir Ryan said what many other educators and administrators are echoing: “Nowadays, we are modern. […] Not everything can be found verbally, or in books.”

Fortunately, with access to the Internet, students are now learning from places far beyond the classroom. They’re getting up-to-date, relevant, and diverse information from all over the world with just a click of a button. It’s an experience that affirms the saying: what a time to be alive!

Interested to know more about our Managed WiFi services and learn how technology can improve education? Email us at education@globe.com.ph